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Tuesday, 26 August 2014

SUZI QUATRO

‘The Girl From Detroit City’

4CD BOX SET

20th October 2014

CAREER SPANNING 4-CD BOXED SET

The Girl From Detroit City is a beautifully presented 4-CD boxed set, celebrating an amazing 50 years in the music business for rock ‘n’ roll queen, Suzi Quatro.

The 82 tracks on offer here span the whole of Suzi’s career, including three songs by the Pleasure Seekers, the all-girl rock band, which Suzi formed along with her sister Patti, and which signed to Mercury Records in 1968. Her massive chart hits from the 1970s also feature, including the ‘Chinnichap’ numbers, Can the Can, 48 Crash and Devil Gate Drive and a whole wealth of material from the 1970s onwards, through to tracks from her critically-acclaimed 2011 album, In The Spotlight, which witnessed her reunion with producer, Mike Chapman; highlights of which included Suzi’s covers of Goldfrapp’s Strict Machine and Rhianna’s Breaking Dishes plus a Chapman number, A Girl Like Me, which he wrote especially for her.

The Girl From Detroit City comes complete with fascinating up-to-date liner notes, tracking Suzi’s career from the outset to the present day, and it presents a wealth of album & poster artwork and photographs, including a shot of Suzi’s incredible vintage Ray-Ban collection!

Suzi Quatro was the most successful female artist of the entire Glam Rock period (Suzi’s style and music were not truly ‘Glam’ but this was the era, which saw her shoot to stardom) and her influence on subsequent generations of female rock musicians are widely acknowledged. It’s been well-documented that Chrissie Hynde and Joan Jett both drew inspiration from Suzi but so have many others, including Talking Heads’ Tina Weymouth, who was encouraged to learn to play bass by listening to Quatro albums and, more recently, KT Tunstall revealed that the cover photo of her 2007 album Drastic Fantastic was based on Suzi’s image.

In celebration of Suzi’s 50th year in the music business, the BBC will be hosting a special performance of her one-woman show, Unzipped, in London on Friday 26th September. It will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Thursday 2nd October. On 29th September Cherry Red will also release the single The Girl From Detroit City on digital download only. This brand new song was recorded in 2013 and is exclusive to this compilation. Written and produced by Mike Chapman, the song speaks of Suzi’s early days in Detroit and her discovery by Mickie Most.

50 years on and Suzi Quatro has no intention of slowing down. She’s about to embark on another massive live tour and in 2015 she will finally publish her poetry in a book called Through My Eyes.

Editor’s Notes

Suzi Quatro has sold in excess of 55 million records worldwide.

In the UK she has had 18 hit singles, including 2 No. 1s (Can The Can and Devil Gate Drive). From 1973-1979, Suzi featured in the British charts for no less than 101 weeks.

In Australia it was 18 hit singles with 3 No. 1s, whilst in Germany the total was 18 chart entries, with 12 of them reaching the Top 10.

In 2013, Suzi received a lifetime achievement award at her hometown Detroit Music Awards (the DMAs) and later that year she was presented the Woman of Valour Award from Musicians for Equal Opprtunities for Women (MEOW).

She has also written her autobiography, Unzipped, which adds best-selling author to her already huge list of achievements. In 2012 she hit the stage at London’s Hippodrome Casino for a week, with her one-woman show based around the autobiography.

With nigh on 40 years in show business, Suzi has taken on numerous acting roles, including the TV shows Happy Days, Minder, Dempsey & Makepeace, Absolutely Fabulous and Midsomer Murders. There have also been highly successful musical stage roles, including Annie Get Your Gun and Tallulah Who? and she appeared in the play, Exonerated, alongside Charles Dance.

Suzi has ventured into the world of broadcasting with very successful shows on BBC Radio 2, including Rockin’ With Suzi Q and Wake Up Little Suzi. She also recorded a series of 2-hour high profile documentaries on some of her favourite artists, including Elvis Presley, Otis Redding, Patsy Cline, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, which were broadcast on BBC Radio 2 during 2011 and 2012.

Suzi continues to tour and does over 100 shows a year all over the world. On retiring, she has this to say; “When I turn my back on the audience and shake my ass, and there is silence…..I’ll stop.”